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Notes -
That’s not how thought experiments work. You can’t resolve the trolly problem by just saying, “well what if there is a third track with no one on it! Ha!”
None of those situational tweaks apply in the scenario I proposed. The watcher can trivially save the dangler. They are not afraid of heights, and they are plenty strong enough. It costs them basically nothing to save the dangler. If you want to argue that there is still some risk, we can even make them tied into an anchor point by a climbing harness so it’s completely safe. To me that’s murder.
Even if I accept your argument that a 100% safe rescuer murders by idleness, it only applies theoretically. 99.99% of the time, it can't be proved in a court in the climbing example. What if the rescuer has phobia or some other type of mental issues that paralyzes them with inaction? Without supernatural knowledge of the rescuer's state of mind and intent of action, proving murder by neglect is not possible.
That doesn’t seem particularly relevant. It’s never possible to prove murder with 100% certainty, especially if you are admitting absurd mental states that are totally out of character for the murder. You could say the same thing about sudden hallucinations making murder with a gun actually manslaughter.
If a man walks out on the street with a knife to his own throat and talks about killing himself, are nearby people obligated to stop him? Assuming the man appears weak and otherwise incapable of harming anyone else except himself. In your argument everyone who stands by idly with the capacity to stop him is a murderer.
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